


The Frostbitten Heart

by Noh_Raisin



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/F, Prequel, Slice of Life, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 02:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17295908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noh_Raisin/pseuds/Noh_Raisin
Summary: Princess Frosta is very young for a girl with so many responsibilities. There was a time, though, when she was more carefree, and didn't have to worry about royal duties so much. When she was little she would play with her best and only friend, Sophia, who was assigned to her as a playmate when they were both toddlers. It was a friendship that was to thrive for many years.Yet if nothing lasts forever, then what makes the love between these girls the exception?





	The Frostbitten Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written as part of a writing contest, more specifically a WriteOff round focusing on She-Ra fanfiction. This is my first time writing fiction for the She-Ra fandom. The original text has since been deleted, but what you're looking at now is the revised and more recently published version of the story anyway.
> 
> Enjoy.

**THE FROSTBITTEN HEART**

**by Noh_Raisin**

 

Frosta was given her name because her parents thought it appropriate for a princess.

Sophia was given her name because her parents thought it sounded pleasant.

The two girls were born within a week of each other, during the summertime, in the wintry kingdom of Snows. Frosta was the daughter of the king and queen of this kingdom, and Sophia was the daughter of a soldier and a teacher.

At the age of two, when she barely knew how to speak, Sophia was chosen as Frosta's playmate, for the young princess was allowed only one, even if she was not old enough to understand why this had to be the case. At that age, Sophia did not understand either, but she quickly grew attached to her newfound friend anyway.

As toddlers they would run around the halls of the castle Frosta lived in, the great castle which stood in the center of the great kingdom like a beacon, and Sophia loved going there with her father, who went to the castle regularly.

Sometimes they would hug each other and squeeze as hard they could. Sometimes they would roll around on the floor, much to both the amusement and annoyance of the castle's staff. Sometimes they would play in the bedchamber Frosta shared with her parents and bounce on the king and queen’s bed until they got tired.

All with adult supervision, of course.

The first year of their friendship was perfect, and Sophia considered Frosta her best and only friend.

The fact that her friend was a member of the royal family was irrelevant.

 

* * *

 

When she was three years old, Sophia started attending preschool. The children who went to this school were, like her, beautiful and bright and who seemingly sprouted from the same many-branched tree that was the kingdom. Yet none of these children was Frosta; Sophia's best friend was nowhere to be found in the school.

Sophia attended preschool for two years, and while she did become friends with some of the other children, she waited for her best friend every day, expecting her to appear out of the nothingness that was the world Sophia did not know about. Her best friend never came, though.

While she and Frosta still played with each other in the castle, when they had the time and their parents would allow it, such fun did not occur as often as before. There was so much time Sophia wanted to spend with her friend that she couldn't, and it all proved very unpleasant.

One day, during that long and agonizing stretch of waiting, Sophia asked her mother, who taught at a school for older children, —Where Frost-a? I don't see her at s-chool...

Her mother said, —She goes to a tutor, sweetie. She doesn't go to school.

—What that, though? wondered Sophia.

—A tutor is a special kind of teacher, sweetie.

—Oh, she said. —But I thought teachers went to s-chools.

—Tutors don't have to teach at schools, sweetie, said her mother. —They can work someplace else if whoever hired them wants it that way.

—Oh, she said, not understanding what "hired" meant, but then she thought of something. —Like a castle?

—Yes, sweetie, like a castle.

—Like the one Frost-a live in?

—Absolutely.

Sophia played with her little fingers, a scowl on her face. But at least she had an idea as to where Frosta went; she never left the castle she lived in. At the same time Sophia was almost distraught to spend all those hours at the school without her best friend, and she convinced herself that Frosta would come out of her castle someday soon.

She ended up waiting a long time, and she made sure that no one, no matter how much she liked them, took Frosta's place as her best friend.

 

* * *

 

Sophia was now five years old.

Kindergarten came along, and with it just a bit of maturity for her. She grew a couple inches, and she could now use things like commas and apostrophes in her sentences with consistency. With these newly gain grammatical skills she started writing little exchanges between made-up characters, which didn’t really count as stories but which Sophia found engrossing regardless; truth be told she still couldn’t draw straight lines just right, so when she had a character speak there was a funny little squiggly line right next to what the character was saying.

She was proving to be quite sharp-witted for a girl her age, though.

She even gained enough presence of mind to ask her father if she could go with him to the castle more often, like in the old days, and her father said, —Only if you make your mother and I proud with your grades, honey.

So she did.

It wasn't very hard.

Before she knew it she was back at the castle, with Frosta, her best friend, who had grown as well. Both girls were now precious beyond compare, like flakes of snow that were given life and human bodies.

Since they were no longer cute little toddlers, though, the girls were discouraged by their parents from running around all willy-nilly through the halls. Apparently they were too old and too big for such silly nonsense. Instead they were given permission to play in the castle courtyard, where guards were always keeping watch and where there was enough open space for the girls to play to their hearts' content.

What at first seemed like a restriction turned out to be more a simple change of pace.

 

* * *

 

The courtyard became a playground for Sophia and Frosta, who were the only children who ever played in it. It struck Sophia as strange at first, because when she was in school she got to be around so many kids her age, and when she was with Frosta she didn't get to be around anyone else.

So, when she was six years old, Sophia asked her friend, —How come there aren't other kids here?

—In my house? inquired Frosta, who saw the castle she was entitled to as a mere "house."

—Yeah, said Sophia, somewhat sad. She stepped in the snow in funny ways, sometimes like a duck, sometimes like a chicken, the snow being crunched underfoot and making sounds she liked.

—You’re my friend, Sophia, said Frosta, —so you're the only one who comes here.

—Does that mean I'm your only friend? asked Sophia, sounding sadder now. It didn't seem right for her best friend to not have other friends.

Frosta scrunched up her button nose bitterly. —No time for other friends, she said.

—But why?

—A princess doesn't need other friends, she said, almost under her breath, very delicately molding a snowball in her hands.

—But that's not very...

Sophia didn't get to finish her sentence, on account of taking a finely crafted snowball to the face. —Hey! she yelped.

Frosta had a cat-like grin on her face, already creating another snowball. —You weren't paying attention, she said. She took aim, and her aim was true, hitting Sophia square in the chest, getting snowflakes all over her winter coat.

—If that's how you want it...

The grin on Sophia's face grew to nearly match Frosta's, and in a few seconds The First Great War of the Airborne Snowballs began. There would be many more.

 

* * *

 

Sophia entered elementary school with grace, not so much minding Frosta's absence in her school-day life anymore. In fact she came to understand her best friend's education quite well.

Since Frosta was a princess, and since she was expected to one day lead the kingdom herself, she didn't take classes like other children did; instead she learned from tutors, hand-picked by her parents, who were experts in their respective fields. As Sophia learned basic algebra and studied books written specifically for children, Frosta became knowledgeable in fields of study such as geometry, calculus, ancient history, philosophy, biology, chemistry, literature from around the world, and so on, from a very young age.

Not only that, but as Sophia would find out over time her best friend was also being trained in the ways of magic, specifically magic involving water in all its forms, so that she could one day use magic to provide a safer and happier future for her kingdom.

Frosta was also being trained in the use of weapons and the strategies of war. She was given a dagger at the age of seven, a dagger whose blade resembled a particularly sharp icicle, and this dagger went into a sheath that fit comfortably around the belt of her coat. It was Frosta's first weapon, and both with and without it she learned several fashions in which a child of her age and stature could incapacitate and even kill an enemy.

Sophia's father told her that on top of being a princess, Frosta would perhaps also have to become a warrior someday.

None of this mattered much to Sophia at the time, for she and her best friend still had the courtyard to themselves; as far as she knew or cared about, that was all they needed.

 

* * *

 

When Sophia was eight years old, she started taking part in the conversations her parents had, albeit as more a keen observer than an active participant. Her parents talked about a lot of things that just a few years ago she had no idea about, one of these being the war that was apparently happening outside the kingdom.

Her father, now a high-ranking colonel, even though he never fought in a real skirmish or witnessed death on any battlefield, said that a war was waging between the neighboring kingdom of Bright Moon and a malevolent force known as the Horde. Her father tried to explain what the Horde was and why Bright Moon was fighting against it, but as Sophia would come to understand, the Horde was more like a gas than a solid; the soldiers of the Horde came from the Fright Zone, which even in its name seemed too abstract to be a real place. Her father told her that Snows was a neutral kingdom, and that was it enjoying peacetime for quite a while now and that it would continue to enjoy peacetime for the foreseeable future.

Sophia sighed in relief and took comfort in knowing that even though Frosta was being trained to fight in a possible scenario where Snows would be at war with someone or something like the Horde, her best friend would probably never have to fight anyone.

Even so, the split-second image of Frosta having to kill someone, even a complete stranger, even someone who deserved to be attacked, made Sophia's journey to dreamland an uneasy one that night.

 

* * *

 

In the courtyard, when the girls weren't having snowball fights or wrestling playfully in the white wonderland that was their playground, they often took to making snow-things and sculptures.

Their first endeavors in the art of making things out of snow involved simple geometrical shapes, like cubes and pyramids, which naturally evolved into castles, mansions, cathedrals, and so on. The most ambitious of these was perhaps a detailed replica of Frosta's home, complete with the very courtyard they were constructing this snow-castle in.

—And... wait, said Frosta in that even tone of hers. She eyed the edges of the castle towers, as the replica was now in its final stage of development.

Sophia sat on her haunches, her hood half-covering her eyes, watching her friend exhibit her compulsory attention to detail. It was almost surreal, seeing Frosta in this mode of place, and Sophia couldn't help but notice how pale and smooth her best friend's hands were; it had only occurred to her now, in fact, that her best friend never wore gloves.

—Hey, said Sophia, —how come you don't cover your hands? It's cold out here.

—No it's not, replied Frosta, as if what she said was factual. —I don't feel anything.

—Okay, said Sophia, rocking back and forth slightly on her haunches. —But then why do you not wear gloves? You didn't really give me an answer before. It might not feel cold to you, but it is.

—Lets my magic breathe, she said simply.

Despite not being too familiar with the ways of magic, it made enough sense to Sophia.

She watched Frosta refine the lines and grooves of the castle towers, flakes of snow materializing from her fingertips as she added to the snow-castle, only to chisel gently with a finger; she was like an artist, trapped willingly in the vital moment of revision, her eyes narrowing as she put on the finishing touches.

—I don't think I could do all this on my own, said Sophia quietly.

—Probably, said her best friend, the barest hint of a smile on her lips.

 

* * *

 

Sophia didn't realize it immediately, but by the time she turned nine years old she had begun to see her best friend less and less frequently. They still spent a good amount of time together, and Frosta was still obviously her best friend, but something was changing that Sophia could not figure out.

They still got together in the courtyard, of course, and their playtime projects were as time-encompassing as ever; they started to see each other less as playmates and more as companions, or partners in crime. Sophia would act as a constructor type, working on the outline of the project, while Frosta focused on the little things that made all the effort truly worth it.

How quaint it was, that after all these years Sophia still saw Frosta as her best friend. Friends tended to drift apart after a certain amount of time, and indeed Sophia got to say "hello" and "good-bye" to a good number of friends since her preschool days. Yet Frosta remained, after so much time had passed.

It was this train of thought that compelled Sophia to say something one day, as the two were working on a snow-alicorn, one of their favorite snow-things to build and then destroy.

—Frosta? said Sophia, stopping work on one of the alicorn's hind legs to look at her best friend.

—Yes? said her best friend, not stopping in her building and chipping away at one of the ears.

—I love you, said Sophia, almost casually. —I love you very much.

An awkward moment passed between them.

—I love you too, Sophia, said Frosta, and she kept working on the snow-alicorn as if nothing noteworthy had just happened.

Sophia felt a bit of sadness grow in her stomach, but she knew that despite her friend's business-like way of doing and saying things nowadays, Frosta meant what she said.

—Now watch this, said Frosta. —The most appealing pair of ice-wings yet.

Sophia knew her friend meant "prettiest" when she said "most appealing," since Frosta hadn't used such a childlike word to describe something in what seemed to Sophia like ages.

Sure enough, the wings turned out impressive. Just the sight of Frosta making clean sheets of ice out of nothing impressed Sophia enough, but seeing her best friend shape such delicate wings for the snow-alicorn was even more impressive; the fact that Sophia couldn't make ice or snow come out of her hands didn't bother her.

She really loved Frosta... as much as any nine-year-old child could.

And yet that feeling for her best friend, which burned so brightly in her heart, made her also feel deeply sad sometimes, for some reason. She didn't know what to make of this simultaneous burning in her heart and weight in her stomach, but she didn't like it.

She didn't know what to do with this queer type of pain, or how to express it.

She was already busy expressing feelings her best friend couldn't.

 

* * *

 

Being ten years old proved to be intensely bittersweet for Sophia.

She had a lot of fun being with her friends at school, and she even got to know her parents better than when she was younger. Sometimes she would talk to her father about his job, about the political state of Snows, about what her father liked to do in his spare time, and they would have fun together; the same could be said of her mother, except now that Sophia went to the same school her mother taught in, they began to find much common ground in academic matters, and her mother would even teach her stuff that was a little more advanced than what she was already learning in her classes. She even started to hone her handwriting, to the point where she could tag character dialogue in her little stories with straight and true dashes.

Always being the solid student, Sophia's grade rarely slipped either. The men and women who taught her would often talk to her parents, quite cheerfully, about how well she was doing and how she served as a model student for her fellow classmates.

In most areas of her life, things were going exceptionally well for her.

And yet...

When she went to castle, and asked to spend some time with Frosta, she was sometimes denied. According to Sophia's father, as well as those who worked in the castle, Frosta had some responsibilities she had to manage, now that she was older. A lot of things were expected of Frosta, as a princess who, just like Sophia, had turned ten not long ago.

Entire weeks would go by without any word from Frosta, and this made Sophia feel incredibly anxious and frustrated; it was like when she was in preschool, except now that she was older and had more control over her own life it seemed like being unable to play with Frosta made the absence of her best friend all the more bitter.

What made the anxiety even worse was the fact that Sophia's affection for Frosta had not faded or dwindled in the years that they had known each other. There were many nights where Sophia would squirm and turn in her bed, her mind and heart wrapped in conflict about her friendship with Frosta. Sometimes she wondered, or rather feared, if Frosta would abandon her at some point in the future, even though Sophia was still her only friend; the fact that Frosta only had one friend didn't seem to mind her, and in fact she had started to act entirely like an adult who only cared about work that needed to be done. Not even a normal adult, but an adult who was given special responsibilities and a special position in life which required a special way of acting around other people.

It was possible, then, that perhaps Frosta no longer needed friends.

 

* * *

 

Soon after Sophia's eleventh birthday, she got to spend time with Frosta, for the first time in over three months; apparently Frosta was too busy to make time for her friend during that period.

The girls were in the courtyard, the one place they still had a grip on, albeit a loose one. They were making angels in the snow, and sometimes Frosta would shoot flakes into the air with her magic, as if they were fireworks. For her part, Sophia simply lay in the snow, breathing in the cold air of Snows, her exhalations manifesting as puffs of visible nothingness.

The two girls lay there, in silence, in what seemed like peace. Minutes passed, but Sophia felt a storm of emotions swirling and thrashing violently inside her.

Suddenly, without looking at Frosta next to her, she said, —Hey.

—Hello, her friend said back.

—What do you do these days, anyway?

—I have a schedule, said Frosta in a matter-of-fact way. —There are too many appointments listed for me to remember all of them right now. I can only think of... eighty percent of them, maybe.

—Sounds like a lot of work.

—Yes, said Frosta. —The Princess Prom is happening later this year. I'll be hosting it.

—Sounds cool.

—It'll be my first time as a host for the Prom, said Frosta, with a single choked chuckle. —Obviously. I'm eleven.

—So am I, said Sophia, finally turning her head to look at her friend.

—Eleven and a tenth, said Frosta. —Or something like that. A small fraction, but it counts.

Sophia couldn't help but smile faintly at that. —Sure is, she said.

It was true indeed that Frosta was eleven and something like a tenth now. A lot had changed for her, and between the girls, even if some other things didn’t; for instance, the war between people of Bright Moon and the Horde was still raging in the far distance, safely outside the kingdom’s boundaries but often on Sofia’s mind.

It made her think about where her friend could be heading. —Hey, Frosta? she said.

—Yes?

—We’re not going to war, are we? Because I thought you of all people would know if maybe...

If Frosta made an expression of any kind, Sophia couldn’t tell. —Our policy of neutrality remains the same as always. I don’t think we’ll be fighting anyone.

—That’s good, then.

—Even if we have to fight, we’ll do what we have to. We have the men and the power for it.

—You can take them on with your magic?

—Of course.

Sofia eyed the holstered dagger that Frosta still kept with her, at all times as far as she knew. It was both a calming and worrying sight.

She knew she wanted to say something more than small talk, something that actually meant something. She couldn't bring herself to, though, and she couldn't find the words for it either, even if she tried harder.

After a while she saw her father standing at the edge of the courtyard, accompanied on both sides by guards; she knew it was time to leave, even though she didn't want to.

The girls got up and were about to part ways when Sophia did something she hadn't done in many months: she embraced Frosta. She help her friend in a deep and unapologetic hug, their thick coats not getting too much in the way of the warmth that Sophia felt when she held Frosta so close to her.

Yet Frosta did not return her hug. Instead she said, —Uhhhh...

Sophia's grip on her only tightened, and she said, —I love you, Frosta. I don’t know how long it’s been since I last said that, but I wanted to say it again. Because I felt like I had to, or else...

A lot of air left Frosta's lungs in a single hard sigh, and Sophia couldn't tell if it was out of discomfort, guilt, or something else. It was then that Sophia felt her friend's arms wrap around her, very delicately, like the wings Frosta would sculpt for a snow-alicorn.

Quietly, stoically, but with enough pained warmth bleeding into her voice, Frosta said, —I love you too, Sophia.

It was here, in this moment, when Sophia felt loved in return. She wanted to say something, but she felt like she no longer had to say it. There were flights of butterflies soaring around in her stomach, and it was an uneasy but ecstatic feeling that she never wanted to end.

But then, finally, the feeling ended, as did the embrace, and the girls went their separate ways, knowing that as best friends they could do anything.

Even drift apart...

 

* * *

 

Six months passed, and Sophia never saw her best friend in all that time.

Not in person, not a single letter, nothing.

Sophia went back to the castle, with her father, and she knew that Frosta would not see her; either Frosta would not or she could not, but the result was the same either way.

Sophia went into the courtyard by herself; she never went into the courtyard by herself, in all her years of visiting the castle.

She started to make a snow-alicorn, starting with the legs and working up. Without Frosta, the banality of making the snow-alicorn revealed itself to Sophia, and she took solace in the clearness of the sky above and the crunching sounds of snow underneath; she still liked those sounds very much.

It all seemed empty, though.

Sophia managed to get a lot of work done with just her hands, even though the product was looking rough around the edges. She made a horn for the snow-alicorn, which was as of this moment a snow-unicorn. She did not want to make a snow-unicorn, though; she wanted to make what she and Frosta used to make.

Yet with only her hands, she couldn't make wings. Since she was not a magic-user, she couldn't sculpt or create snow and ice out of thin air. She couldn't make what she wanted without her friend.

Her best friend...

Sophia sat in front of the snow-unicorn for a while, staring at it. No matter which way she tried to figure it out in her head, she couldn't make a snow-alicorn out of it.

In a fit of rage and sadness that overtook her in an instant she got up and kicked over what she had made. She stomped on what were left of the legs and kicked snow all around her, scattering it, screaming at herself more than anything or anyone. She picked up globs of snow and threw them at no one in particular, knowing that despite the fact that there were guards not too far away, she was alone.

She was alone, and she still loved the person she missed so badly.

Sitting down again, her knees against her chin, Sophia took a finger and drew a heart in the snow right beside her; she then wrote her name and Frosta's within its borders.

It was this act, which Sophia did not put much thought into, that made her realize what she wanted and what she couldn't have. Pressure starting building up in her eyes, and she rubbed them with the back of her hand to try, in vain, to ease the pain.


End file.
